Tag: Ruger No. 1

A .22 Hornet Ruger No. 3!

I’ve written about the Hornet before (and I’ll give you a link to that past blog at the end of this one). The point of today’s writeup?  It’s about accuracy and a few different loads for the Hornet in my single-shot No. 3 Ruger.  I like the idea of a single-shot rifle and I love the .22 Hornet cartridge.  The .22 Hornet was the world’s first centerfire .22 cartridge, and in its day, it was a real hot rod.  Velocities range between 2400 and 2900 feet per second (sometimes a little more, depending on the load).  Recoil and muzzle blast are nearly nonexistent compared to other centerfire cartridges, and it’s a fun cartridge to shoot.

A Ruger No. 3 in .22 Hornet. It has a period-correct inexpensive Bushnell 4X scope, which is good enough for me. My rifle is in near-new condition.

The idea for this blog started when I saw three boxes of Speer 33-grain hollow point bullets a couple a few weeks ago at my reloading supply depot.  They were inexpensive (just $10 a box), so I bought all three.   I hadn’t tried the light Speer bullets and I wanted to see how they compared to an old favorite, the 45-grain Sierra Hornet bullet.  I also wanted to try a propellant that I had purchased previously (Lil Gun) and compare it to my favorite Hornet propellant (Winchester 296).   And my good buddy Tom recently gave me a bunch of old .22 Hornet ammo that I shot up on a prior outing, so I had a good supply of Hornet brass.  It all came together a week or two ago, and the result was a hundred rounds of reloaded .22 Hornet ammo in various load configurations.

The Sierra 45-grain jacketed soft point bullet on the left, and the Speer 33-grain jacketed hollow point bullet on the right.

The Ruger No. 3 was the low-alternative to the fancier Ruger No. 1 back in the day.  The No. 1 had more figured walnut (in the 1970s, and maybe today, too), the No. 1 rifles with iron sights had fancier sights and a cool quarter rib, the No. 1 stock had a pistol grip and a rubber recoil pad, and the No. 1 had hand-cut checkering.  The No. 3 was a simpler gun, with plain walnut, an aluminum (later plastic) buttplate, no checkering, and a less-fancy iron sight setup.  In the 1970s, the No. 3 suggested retail price was $165, and you could buy them brand new all day long for $139.  The No. 1 retail price was $265, and those could similarly be had for $239.  Oh, how times have changed.  New No. 1 Rugers sell for something like $1500 today, and Ruger stopped making the No. 3 altogether.  It’s likely (in my opinion) that at some point in the not too distant future, Ruger will drop the No. 1, too.  That’s okay; it will make mine more valuable.  Not that I’m planning to sell anything.  It just feels better knowing the value is going up.

Ruger manufactured the No .3 from 1973 to 1986.  The very first one was chambered in .45 70 (a classic cartridge, to be sure), and then Ruger added two more classics:  The .22 Hornet and the .30-40 Krag.  Ruger built the rifle you see in this blog in 1978.  Ruger No. 3 rifles can still be found on the used gun market, but these days they go for about the same price as a used No. 1, which is usually somewhere between $800 and $1000.  Supply and demand, you know…they aren’t making any more No. 3 Rugers.

The Ruger No. 3 falling block action, with the lever open and the block in the retracted (or lowered) position.

The Ruger’s action is called a falling block because, well, it is. When you open the trigger guard/lever, the breechblock drops (it’s the silver thing you see in front of the trigger in the photo above), and that allows inserting a round in the chamber.

Ruger uses a distinctive font on its No. 1 and No. 3 rollmarks. This one is cool.
The .22 Hornet is a cute round. These are loaded with 45-grain Sierra jacketed softpoint bullets.
A sense of scale: .22 Hornet rounds next to a couple of .30 30 cartridges.
Another sense-of-scale photo. From left to right, that’s a .416 Rigby cartridge with a 350-grain cast Montana bullet, a .300 Weatherby Magnum with a 180-grain jacketed softpoint bullet, a .45 ACP with a 230-grain jacketed roundnose bullet, a .357 Magnum with a 158-grain plated bullet, a .22 Hornet with a 45-grain jacketed softpoint bullet, another .22 Hornet with a 33-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullet, and a .22 Long Rifle with a 40-grain plated bullet.

The Hornet is fun to shoot, but it’s one of those cartridges that is tricky to reload (a couple of others are .30 Carbine and 9mm; they are challenging to reload for other reasons).  Hornet brass is very thin (so you can’t reload it too many times and it’s easy to deform it when seating the bullet).  It’s hard to get the bullets started straight during the seating operation, and the whole reloading process just takes a lot more finesse than does reloading most other cartridges.  Everything is tiny.  That being said, though, I like reloading Hornet ammo, especially when good groups are the result.

So how did it go?  Not bad, I think.  Here are the results:

The 33-grain loads show promise.

My testing wasn’t exhaustive, and I only shot at 50 yards on this outing.  I tried a few new things with these tests.  As mentioned above, the Lil Gun propellant and 33-grain Speer bullets were two of the variables, and both did well.  I’d previously read that some shooters had better results using small pistol primers instead of small rifle primers, so tried that and it seems to be the case for me, too.  The theory is that small rifle primers, combined with the Hornet’s small case capacity, may blow the bullet out of the case before the powder can get a good burn going.  I don’t know if that’s the case or not, but the small pistol primers worked well for me.

The next steps for me will be to shoot these loads at 100 yards to see how the rifle does at that range.  The scope on my rifle is an inexpensive Bushnell straight 4X and it’s quite a bit more clear at 100 yards (it’s just a little bit out of focus at 50 yards).  We’ll see how that goes, and I’ll publish the results here.  Stay tuned, my friends.

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A .257 Weatherby No. 1 Update: A story with a happy ending

I posted a series of blogs on my Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby and the loads I was developing for it a few months ago, and I told you about the stock cracking on my rifle.  That held things up for a while.

The original stock on my .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 cracked on the top and the bottom, just aft of the tang. I can repair this stock and use it, but Ruger provided a new stock on the warranty. Ruger customer service is top notch.

Ruger Customer Service

I was disappointed about the stock fracture, but the wizards at Ruger did a good job in selecting a piece of wood of comparable quality, figure, and tone.   I also asked Ruger to return the defective stock to me after they installed the new one, and they did.  And they didn’t charge me anything to put a new stock on the rifle (it was a warranty repair).  Ruger sent photos of three stocks they had selected that were a good match for the forearm, and they allowed me to pick the one I wanted.   More good news is that I believe the stocked crack can be repaired.  I’m going to do that and maybe put it back on this rifle.  Or maybe I’ll just have it as a spare.

Tang Relief

I believe the reason the original stock cracked is that the wood around the receiver tang had not been properly fitted (there should be a little clearance to prevent the tang from acting like a wedge to split the wood).    I asked Ruger to make sure the new stock had some clearance behind the tang, and they did.  They actually went a little overboard in my opinion, but that’s preferable to having no relief.

At my request, Ruger relieved the new stock to provide clearance between the receiver’s tang and the wood.

More good news is that I now have a load that reaches into the upper stratosphere of what the .257 Weatherby cartridge can do, and it does so with high velocity and great accuracy.

The New Ruger No. 1 Stock

First, allow me to show you the new lumber on the Ruger No. 1:

The new stock on my Ruger No. 1. Notice how well the stock matches the forearm.
The left side of my new stock. It’s Circassian walnut.
And the right side. The original stock had horizontal stripes, which I wanted Ruger to duplicate. They did a good job. They showed photographs of three stocks to me; this is the one I selected.

Here are a couple more shots to show the new stock, one in the gun rack and another on my workbench when I was cleaning the rifle:

Another view of the new stock.  I love pretty wood.  I selected this No. 1 because of the wood, and when the stock cracked, I was afraid that the replacement would not be as nice.  But it was.
And one more view. The rifle on the left is an unissued, unfired 1956 M44 Polish Mosin-Nagant. The one on the right is another Ruger No. 1, this one chambered in .300 Weatherby. Ruger has in the past offered the Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby, .270 Weatherby, and .300 Weatherby, along with many other non-Weatherby chamberings.  There are still a few new .257 Weatherby Rugers out there.  They are destined to be collectibles.

A Mississippi Dave .257 Weatherby Load

I’d like to take credit for discovering the load on my own, but I can’t do that.  My good buddy Mississippi Dave, who knows more about the .257 Weatherby cartridge than anybody I know, turned me on to Barnes solid bullets and H1000 propellant powder as the keys to success with this cartridge, and he was spot on in his guidance.  Here are my results, all at 100 yards:

Those are great results, and 70.5 grains of H1000 is the load I am going to use with the Barnes bullets.  I think I could have done even better, but conditions were less than ideal when I was shooting that day.  There were a lot of guys on the range the day I was out there, including a couple of Rambo wannabees on either side of me with assault rifles and muzzle brakes shooting rapid fire.  I know that’s what caused that third group with 70.5 grains of H1000 to open up to over an inch.   I think the No. 1 could be a half-minute-of-angle rifle with this load.  And this load in my rifle (the Ruger has a 28-inch barrel, 2 inches longer than normal) is probably attaining velocities well over 3700 feet per second.  That’s smoking.

One quick additional comment on the above loads:  These are loads that work in my rifle.  Your mileage may vary.  Always consult a reloading manual when you develop a load, and always start at the bottom of the propellant range and slowly work up.  Barnes publishes their recommended reloading data, and you can go to their website to download that information.

Barnes Bullets

The high velocities mentioned above are only possible with Barnes’ solid copper bullets.  Jacketed bullets (lead core bullets shrouded in a copper jacket, which is normally how bullets are constructed) would break up in flight at these higher velocities, and for me, they did (see the earlier .257 Weatherby blogs).

The bullets Mississippi Dave recommended. And wow, they worked superbly well.
The Barnes bullets are solid copper. That’s all you can use if you hunt in California. The concern is that if you wound an animal and it later dies, it might be subsequently consumed by a California Condor, and if it had a lead bullet in it, the Condor might die of lead poisoning. I can’t make this stuff up, folks.  Our politicians really believe this could happen.

.257 Weatherby Lessons Learned

I’ve learned a lot, with help from Mississippi Dave, about reloading the .257 Weatherby cartridge.  You have to use solids (the monolithic Barnes bullets) to realize the full velocity potential of the .257 Weatherby.  The .257 Roy can be extremely accurate, and at its upper-range velocities, higher velocities means more accuracy.  Cup and core (conventional jacketed) bullets will work in the .257 Weatherby, but only at lower velocities, and if you’re going to do that, you’re not really using the .257 Roy the way it is intended to be used.  Bore cleanliness is critical on these rifles, and because of the huge powder charges and high projectile velocities, the bore fouls quickly.  When you reload for this cartridge, you not only need to full-length resize the cartridge case, you need to go in another 90 degrees on the resizing die after it contacts the shell holder in order to get the round to chamber. The best powders for this cartridge are the slow burning ones.  H1000, in particular, works well in my rifle.

Earlier .257 Weatherby Blog Posts

The .257 Weatherby sage has been a long one but it is a story with a happy ending.  If you’d like to read our earlier blogs on this magnificent cartridge, here they are:

A Real Hot Tamale
Reloading the .257 Weatherby
Taking Stock of Things
The .257 Weatherby Saga Continues

 More Cool Reloading and Gun Stuff

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A Ruger No. 1 in .300 Weatherby Magnum

A No. 1 in .300 Weatherby:  The Best of Both Worlds

I’m a big fan of the .300 Weatherby cartridge, and an even bigger fan of the Ruger No. 1 rifle.    You’ve seen several blogs about these fine single-shot firearms here on ExhaustNotes, and I thought I’d add another combining the best of both worlds:  A Ruger No. 1 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum.

Ruger didn’t make too many No. 1 rifles in .300 Weatherby.

Finding a Rifle with Fancy Walnut

When Ruger announced the .300 Weatherby No. 1 nearly 30 years ago, I wanted one, but I couldn’t find one with fancy wood.   Then my interest waned and I was on to other things.  I remember seeing one at a gun store in Oregon (it was the first one I’d seen in person), but the wood was plain and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of buying one and having it shipped FFL-to-FFL back to California.  Then I saw one with better-than-average wood on Gunbroker and I had it shipped to a dealer here in California, but that rifle was a disappointment.  It had an aftermarket recoil pad that didn’t appear in the photos on Gunbroker, so back it went.  Then a few years later I saw one that had even better wood (exhibition grade, actually) and I pulled the trigger.  When it arrived, I was blown away by the wood.

The wood looks good from the right, but it looks even better from the left.
See what I mean? Those are my .300 Weatherby Magnum reloads, and they shot very well in this rifle.

Ruger No. 1 Accuracy

My .300 Weatherby No. 1 is essentially a new gun, and it may have been unfired when I bought it.  Sometimes guys buy these big bore magnums, keep them for several years, and then sell them without ever taking them to the range.  Even when folks do shoot their .300 magnum rifles, it’s more often than not the case that very few rounds are fired.  Sometimes the folks who buy these things don’t realize just how severe the recoil is, and after one or two shots, they conclude the rifle is not for them.

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I held off firing this rifle for a long time.  It wasn’t because I was afraid of the recoil (although it is significant).  I guess on some level what I feared was that the rifle would be inaccurate.  I didn’t want to not like it, so I didn’t shoot it.  I owned this rifle a good 10 years before I got around to mounting a scope on it and to see how it performed.  That happened just a couple of weeks ago.

In a word, the rifle performed magnificently.  I put a Redfield variable scope on it and did my normal sighting-in routine at the range.  That consisted of loosely mounting the scope, taking it to the range to move it back and forth to get the eye relief where I want it to be, and then setting up the rifle on a rest.  The drill there is to look through the bore at a target at 50 yards (centering the target in the bore) and then, without disturbing the rifle, dialing in the windage and elevation turrets so that the scope’s crosshairs are centered on the target.  I did that, and my first shot went exactly where it was supposed to go.

The next step was to move the target out to 100 yards and adjust the scope at that range.   It took only three groups to get the rifle zeroed.

The target on the left is the first one fired at 100 yards (the bullets were hitting high and to the left). I dropped the elevation about 12 clicks (each click is a quarter inch at 100 yards) for the second group, and then 8 clicks on the windage to move the point of impact to the right for the third target. I’m there.

The load I used was one that performs well in my bolt action .300 Weatherby bolt action rifles, and that’s an upper-range dose of IMR 7828 SSC propellant with the 180-grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet and CCI magnum rifle primers.  What’s satisfying is that this is a minute-of-angle load (it shoots into an inch at 100 yards), and I haven’t really done any load development with this rifle yet.  It’s almost kind of disappointing when they shoot this well immediately (half the fun is experimenting to find the right load), but hey, it is what it is.

I’ve found that the .300 Weatherby Magnum is an inherently accurate cartridge when loaded with heavier bullets and maximum or near-maximum propellant charges.  I have a few boxes left of the 180-grain Remington bullets, and that’s what I’ll be using for a bit.  I can’t hunt with those bullets in California (we have to use copper solids here in the Peoples’ Republik), but the Remington pills are legal on the rifle range in our gloriously-progressive state, and they’re good for hunting in other states with more normal hunting rules.

Finding a Ruger’s Age

Ruger has a spot on their website where you can punch in the serial number to find out when the rifle shipped.  I did, and mine left the factory in 1993.  Yep, it’s 26 years old, and it’s in as-new condition.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line:  I like this rifle.  It’s chambered for a great cartridge, it has outstanding wood, it’s accurate, and it’s a single shot.  There’s just something cool about single-shot rifles, especially when they have wood like this one.

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Catching up and what’s coming up!

Snacks at an engineering seminar in Singapore. Those are hard-boiled quail eggs and they were good!

I’m back after a 3-day hop over to Singapore, and it’s good to be home.  I thought I’d do sort of a catchall blog to mention a bunch of things.  For starters, Singapore was fun (it always is), but that 15-hour time change is a bear.  I was over there to teach a class, something I do two or three times a year.  They treat me well in Singapore and I love traveling to Asia.  I think I’m back on California time already, thanks to keeping an altered sleep schedule while I was in Asia and a good sleeping pill that let me sleep through the night last night.  If you’ve never been to Singapore, you might want to add it to your bucket list.  It’s one of the world’s great places.

I kept up (as many of you did) with Joe Gresh’s Endurofest fun in Flagstaff, and it looks like the only downside to that adventure was his good buddy Hunter crashed and cracked a bunch of ribs.  Hunter, we’re thinking of you.  Get well soon.

At the spot where Joe’s buddy Hunter crashed. He got through it with six broken ribs. Ouch!

And speaking of cracking things, you’ll remember the story on my .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 cracking its Circassian walnut stock and me shipping it back to the factory.  I called Ruger, but I still don’t have an update on the fix.  They were supposed to get back to me later today, but it’s already later today so I expect I won’t hear anything until tomorrow or Monday.  I’ve got a bunch of .257 Weatherby brass polished and primed, and I’ve got the Barnes monolithic copper bullets my good buddy Mississippi Dave recommended.  I’m eager to get that rifle back and continue the load development for it.

A 200th year Ruger 77 in 7×57. You’d think with all those 7s I’d get lucky, but I haven’t found a way to get tight groups yet. I’m working the problem.

In the meantime, I’ve been playing with a beautiful 43-year-old Ruger Model 77.  It’s a 200th year Ruger in a very classy chambering, the 7×57, which is the old Spanish Mauser cartridge.  I bought it used in 1977 and it is in pristine condition, and I think I know why the previous owner sold it.   It doesn’t group worth a damn.  But that makes it more fun (half the fun with these things is searching for a good load).   Stay tuned, because if I ever find a decent load, you can be sure there will be a blog on this one.

The carb on my TT250 is gummed up and it won’t idle.  That’s not the bike’s fault.  It’s mine.  I sometimes go months between rides on that bike, and that’s what happened here.  I’ll take the carb apart to clean out the passageways, and when I do, I’ll photodocument the approach so you can see how I go about it.   I’ll have to re-read the tutorial I did for CSC Motorcycles on the TT250 carb first.  These bikes are super easy to maintain, and they have to be one of the best deals ever on a new motorcycle.

Hey, another cool motorcycle deal…my good buddy Ben recently published a book titled 21 Tips For Your First Ride South Of The Border (and it’s free).  You can download it here.

Let’s see…what else?  Oh yeah, we have a bunch of stuff in the blog pipeline for you.  There’s the Yoo-Hoo product review (we haven’t forgotten about that one).   There’s a very cool watch company (Gear’d Hardware) that follows the ExNotes blog, and they recently sent two watches to us for review.  The review will appear here in the near future.  That’s good; we’ve been meaning to start a watch review series and this will get the ball rolling.

A Gear’d Hardware watch, one of two Gresh and I will review for you here on the ExhaustNotes blog.

More good stuff:  I’ve been playing with another Ruger No. 1 chambered in yet another Weatherby cartridge (the mighty .300 Weatherby), and I’ll be posting a blog about that soon.   Another product review that’s coming up is one on turmeric, the dietary supplement that’s supposed to work wonders for arthritis.  I don’t have arthritis, but that crash I had on my Speed Triple 10 years ago has bothered me mightily for the last decade, and taking turmeric is getting it done for me.  I don’t normally believe in these supplement wonder pills, but folks, it’s working.  Watch for the blog on this stuff.  And we haven’t forgotten about a near-term ride up the Pacific Coast Highway (good buddy TK and I have been talking about that one).

California’s Pacific Coast Highway: It doesn’t get any better than this.

Stay tuned; there’s always good stuff coming your way here on the ExNotes blog!

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Taking stock of things…

Good groups with cup-and-core copper jacketed bullets, but I had to slow things down to get the groups to shrink. What I need for this rifle to get the velocities up are solids.

Wow, I was absolutely elated with the groups I fired with the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 and when I was cleaning my rifle, I was thinking about how much I was enjoying the rifle now that I had it shooting well.   I knew it wasn’t living up to its potential yet because of the excellent inputs I had received from my new good buddy David from Mississippi, who I think is maybe the most knowledgeable guy out there about the .257 Weatherby cartridge and the Ruger No. 1.   David explained that I really needed monolithic (solid copper) bullets to reach the kinds of velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and I ordered a couple of boxes of Barnes solids based on his advice.

I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new Barnes copper bullets when I started cleaning my No. 1, thinking about them and admiring the grain in the rifle’s Circassian walnut stock.  Then something caught my eye.  Whoa, what’s this?

The stock had cracked.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but there it was.  No, I didn’t get a photo.  But I had two small cracks, just behind the receiver, one on the top and one on the bottom of the rifle.  When you inlet and fit a stock to a rifle, you’re supposed to provide a bit of relief between the back of the tang (the rifle receiver’s rearmost structure) and the wood.   What you don’t want is the tang bearing directly on the walnut, as it can act as a wedge and crack the stock.   That’s what happened on mine.

Beautiful Circassian walnut; the best I had seen after looking at dozens of .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 rifles. But it was all for naught.

I felt sick about the stock cracking.  I had selected my .257 Weatherby No. 1  (after looking at a bunch of them) specifically based on its Circassian walnut stock and matching fore end.  Well, it is what it is, and bitching and moaning won’t make it better.  So I called Ruger’s Customer Service, they emailed a shipping label to me while we were on the phone, and I returned the rifle to Ruger.   I’m hoping they’ll find a stock that’s as nice (or nicer) than the one I had, but I’m not worried about it.  Ruger’s Customer Service is legendary, and I’m sure they’ll do good by me.  You’ll know about it as soon as I do.   And I’m eager to try the loads and new bullets my good buddy David recommended.  Stay tuned, my friends.   I’m going to explore the terrain above 3,500 feet per second with this rifle, and I’m going to produce tiny little groups doing so.  We’ll see what happens!

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The .257 Weatherby saga continues…

The Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. It was a glorious weekend.

I have good news and I have bad news, like my old platoon sergeant used to say.   The good news is that the .257 Weatherby chambering issue that I wrote about in the last blog is in the rear view mirror.  I learned the secret handshake from RCBS tech support, as I wrote in a previous blog.  More good news is that I loaded several more combinations of propellant and charge weights (all with the Sierra 100-grain jacketed soft point bullet) and I saw a few loads that show promise.  Nothing really great yet, but better than I’d seen before I solved the chambering issue problem.  I’ll show you the results in a second or two.

Reloading .257 Weatherby Magnum Ammo

Beautiful ammo, but getting it to perform in the Ruger No. 1 has been a challenge. I’m not there yet.  These are 100-grain Sierra bullets.  Phil at Sierra told me they have driven these up to 3500 fps without bullet failure.   That’s smoking, folks!

The bad news?  Well, it goes like this.  Some of the bullets broke up in flight, and I’ve got the evidence on target that proves it.  You may recall that I wrote about that in the first blog on the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1, and at that time, I attributed it to the varmint 87-grain bullets I used for those loads.  My thought then is that they were thin-skinned varmint bullets designed to explode on impact, and pushing them at .257 Weatherby velocities (with the consequent aero heating and centrifugal forces) induced the failures.  It’s what made me step up to the 100-grain Sierra bullets, as I thought the heavier bullets might drop the muzzle velocity enough that this would not occur again.

Like I said, beautiful. But will she shoot?

.257 Weatherby Accuracy Testing

My results on the range with my new loads were a bit disappointing.  The rounds chambered okay, but the groups were nothing special and in most cases, downright discouraging. And like I said, I could see that some of the bullets were tumbling and disintegrating in flight.  Here are my results from the latest accuracy tests:

So far, IMR 4064 and H1000 propellants show promise at the lower end of the charge range. Several of these combos had bullets break up in flight. I’m searching for cause and corrective action now.

This is what it looked like on target for the best groups that experienced no inflight disintegration:

The load on the left was with 66.0 grains of H1000 propellant; the load on the right was with 52.0 grains of IMR 4064.  Both these combinations grouped about the same and experienced no bullet inflight anomalies.  That’s the good news, although tighter groups would have made it better news.

And here’s what bullet breakup/disintegration looks like on target:

Whoa, check out what’s going on here! The bullet in the photo on the left came apart in flight just as it was passing through the target. You can see a gray misting at the lower right edge of that jagged hole; that’s lead being sprayed out due to centrifugal action. Two of the five bullets in the target on the right similarly broke up as they passed through the target.

Sierra’s Inputs on Bullet Disintegration

I had such good luck calling RCBS tech support on the chambering issue that I thought I would call Sierra and talk to their engineer, and that’s what I did. I found their number easily on the Sierra website, and a minute later I was chatting with Phil, the Sierra tech guru.   Phil listened patiently as I explained what I was seeing on my targets and then he gave me his take on the situation.  He agreed that what I was seeing was clear evidence that the bullets were failing in flight.  My first concern was that the extra long Ruger barrel might be causing the breakups (it’s 28 inches, as opposed to other .257 Weatherby Magnum rifles that have 24 or 26 inch barrels).  Phil said the Ruger’s extra 2 inches would make the muzzle velocity higher, but it wasn’t enough to cause this problem.

Phil pointed me in two or three directions.  His first thought was that the barrel might have an imperfection induced either by a machining anomaly or being too dirty.   He advised me to thoroughly scrub out the barrel and then inspect it carefully.   I felt a bit uneasy (maybe guilty is a better word).  I clean my guns after every range session, but I’m not a fanatic about it.  Another thing that made this hit home for me is that in both recent range visits, I shot some of my best groups early in the sessions (while the barrel was cleaner).  That made me wonder:  Maybe there’s enough crud left in there from the prior session that after the first or second group it attracts more copper and combustion fouling and that’s what is killing accuracy.  I poked around a bit on the Internet and other folks have commented that these rifles require cleaning every 15 or 20 rounds.  Hmmm.  I typically test 50 in a single range session.  I have the barrel soaking with Butch’s bore shine as I write this blog, and there is a lot of copper fouling coming out.  I hope that’s enough to solve the problem.  If it’s an errant machining artifact, that means the rifle has to go back to Ruger, and I really don’t want to go that way.

Phil also advised me to take a look at my resizing die.   He directed me to carefully check the expander button.  It’s the part that opens the case mouth just enough to assure an interference fit with the bullet.  If the expander has a scratch or burr on it, Phil said, that will transfer to the case mouth inner diameter, and that could damage the base of the bullet.  That, too, could account for the bullets breaking up in flight.  Along these same lines, Phil recommended lightly deburring the case mouth’s inner edge.  I had done that on these loads, so I’m thinking that may not be the issue.  But I’ll do it again on the next reload.

The .257 Weatherby Mag resizing die. That thing sticking out of the bottom (on the right) is the decapper, which knocks the old primer out of the fired case.
The expander and decapping pin subassembly removed from the resizing die.
This is the expander button. It passes into the brass case on the up stroke (as the case is being returned to spec dimensions), and then expands the inside of the case mouth on the press retraction stroke. If this part had any burrs on it, it could be inducing a scratch on the inside of the case mouth. That, in turn, could damage the bullet when it is seated into the case.  I didn’t see any burrs, but who knows?  I figured I’d polish it, anyway.  There’s a lot going on in the reloading process. I used to be an engineer in the munitions industry, and I love working these kinds of challenges.
The expander button after polishing. I chucked this piece in a drill and polished it first with 600-grit sandpaper, and then with polishing compound. I could comb my hair (if I had any) in the now-mirrored surface.

So I’ve got the bore soaking with bore solvent and I’ve been working on it for about a day now. There was a lot of copper in there, and it’s still coming out a few atoms at a time (I figure the bore will be copper free by Christmas at the rate I’ve been able to remove it).  I’ve polished the expander button as you can see above.  And, I’ve resized 20 cases that I’ll reload this afternoon at the lower end of the spectrum to see if I can get tighter groups out of my .257 (those cases are in the tumbler/polisher now).  If all goes well, I’ll be back on the range in another day or two, and I’ll let you know what happens right here on the ExhaustNotes blog.  I’ve been drinking my Yoo-Hoo, so things should go better.

For our earlier .257 Weatherby blogs, click here.

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Reloading the .257 Weatherby

I’m a big time Weatherby fan, and I make no apologies for that. I met Roy Weatherby in person and I shoot and hunt with Weatherby rifles.  I believe in the company and their cartridges.  Your mileage may vary, but that won’t change my opinion.  One Weatherby chambering I always wanted but didn’t own yet was the .257 Weatherby.  It’s the fastest .25-caliber cartridge there is.  The heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wanted a rifle chambered for the .257 Roy.

A .257 Roy Ruger No. 1

I’m also a big Ruger fan, and in particular, I’m an admirer of their No. 1 single-shot rifles.   When Ruger offered a limited run of No. 1s chambered in .257 Weatherby Magnum, for me it was a no-brainer:  I had to get one.  I found the one I wanted, it had great wood, and I pulled the trigger.

A Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. Circassian walnut, a 28-inch barrel, and a classy falling block action. What’s not to like?

Chambering Challenges

The only problem?   This was not a marriage made in Heaven.  My Ruger did not want to chamber the ammo I had loaded for it.  I first purchased a box of .257 Weatherby brass manufactured by Hornady and loaded it in several different flavors.  Wow, was that ever disappointing.  The rounds just wouldn’t chamber easily and closing the action was difficult.  And on the ones that would allow the action to close, accuracy was dismal.   I thought I had screwed up by reloading the brass directly without running the brass through the resizing die first, so when I got home I resized the brass.  It was still tough to chamber.  I measured the brass and it seemed to me it was right at the max dimensions.  I called Hornady to complain.  They were nice.  They sent me three empty new cases.

Hornady versus Weatherby Brass

On my next trip to the components store, I picked up four boxes of new Weatherby (not Hornady) brass.  It chambered in the Ruger easily.  I loaded up some ammo and I was off to the range again.  Yep, I reasoned, it must have been that Hornady brass.  The .25-caliber bullets I used, though, were not designed for the very high velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and they were disintegrating in flight.   Accuracy, as you might imagine, was atrocious.  Then I got busy on other things and the Ruger sat in the safe for a year.  You know how that goes…sometimes life gets in the way of having fun.

Earlier this week, I decided to load up a bunch of .257 Weatherby Magnum ammo and work on finding the secret sauce for an accurate load.  I resized all my brass (both the Weatherby and the Hornady brass), tumbled it until the stuff glistened, and then tried to chamber it.   Son of a gun, the Hornady brass still wouldn’t allow the action to close.   Damn, I thought.  I probably spent $50 for that box of brass.  I made a mental note to call Hornady and get my money back.

Then I tried the Weatherby brass that had chambered easily in the rifle when the brass was new (but was now once-fired and resized). To my great surprise, the Weatherby brass wouldn’t chamber, either.  Just like with the Hornady brass, the Ruger’s action wouldn’t close on any of the resized and polished brass (Hornady or Weatherby).

Hmmm.  What could be causing this?  I wondered if the Ruger had an undersized chamber.  That would account for both brands of brass not chambering.   That would get messy. I’d have to send the rifle back to Ruger to have the chamber recut, and hope they didn’t ding up the stock or anything else in the process.   But the Weatherby brass had initially chambered easily in the Ruger.  The rifle’s chamber hadn’t shrunk.   Maybe it wasn’t the rifle.

Then I thought maybe it was the resizing die.  Yeah, that could be it.  If the resizing die was cut too deep, the brass would be too long after resizing, and that would result exactly in what I was experiencing:  The resized brass wouldn’t chamber.   Hmmm.  Yeah, that could be it.

RCBS Tech Support to the Rescue

My next step was to call RCBS, the reloading die manufacturer.   I found the number on their website, I called and waited on the customer service line and in a few minutes I was speaking with a guy named Bill.  I explained my problem to him and my belief that the resizing die might have been cut too deep.

“We get two or three calls a day on the .257 Weatherby Magnum cartridge,” Bill said.  “Tell me how you set up your dies.”

So I did.  I explained that I ran the press ram all the way up, screwed the resizing die all the way in until it touched the shell holder, turned the resizing die just a little bit more to assure intimate contact between the die and the shell holder, and then locked everything down.

“That’s where it’s happening,”  Bill said.   “For the .257 Weatherby, when the die contacts the shell holder, withdraw the ram and turn the die in another 90 degrees.  Then lock it down.”

“Geez,” I said.   “Won’t that break the press?”

“What kind of a press are you using?” Bill asked.

“One of yours,” I answered.   “A Rockchucker.  I’ve been reloading ammo on that press for 50 years.”

“You’d have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wheaties to break that press,” Bill said.   “Trust me on this.  We hear this a lot on all the Weatherby cartridges, especially the .257 Weatherby.  And the 6.5 Creedmoor, too.  Go another 90 degrees in on the resizing die.  Call me if that doesn’t work, but I know it will.   You can’t break that press.”

So I did as Bill advised:  Intimate contact between the shell holder and the resizing die, another 90 degrees in on the resizing die, and then lock everything down.   I resized a single .257 Hornady brass case and then tried the empty case in the Ruger No. 1.   Son of a gun (to use an apt metaphor), the Ruger’s action closed effortlessly.  I tried several more cases with the same result.  Wow, now that’s real expertise and great customer service.  The boys at RCBS know their business.  As it turns out, so do the folks at Hornady. There was nothing wrong with their brass; I just didn’t know the secret handshake to resize it properly.

It’s beautiful ammo, isn’t it? With help from the RCBS customer service folks, I solved my chambering issue. I loaded 70 rounds immediately after talking to Bill at RCBS. If I were to purchase new ammo, it would cost something north of $220 for those 70 cartridges; by my reckoning, I spent about $50 on the reloading components. Reloading provides more accurate and much less expensive ammo.

That night, I loaded 70 rounds of .257 Weatherby Magnum, all with the 100-grain Sierra jacketed softpoint bullet, and I’m headed to the range later this week to test for accuracy.  I’ve got rounds loaded with IMR 4320, IMR 4064, IMR 7828SSC, and H-1000 propellant at both the low and higher ends (but not the max) of the charge spectrum.  I’ll report on what works best in a subsequent blog.

Read the first blog on the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1.  And hey, you might want to read our other Tales of the Gun stories!  Interested in other Weatherby stories specifically?  Here’s one on a Mark V in .30 06.  And another on a 7mm Weatherby and meeting Roy Weatherby!   How about a Remington 700 chambered in 7mm Weatherby?  And one more…our story on three rifles chambered in the mighty .300 Weatherby Magnum!

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Loaded for bear…

Good buddy Jason, a Ruger No. 1 in .338 Win Mag, and a 400-lb, 7-ft Alaskan black bear.

As the title of this blog implies and in this case, my good buddy Jason was literally loaded for bear. For several years I had owned a Ruger No. 1 single-shot rifle in .338 Win Mag.  That’s a monster of a magnum.  I had never fired the rifle and I sold it to Jason. He told me he was going on a bear hunt in Alaska (something I’ve always wanted to do), and I was happy to the see the rifle go to a good home. Most recently, Jason sent the photo you see above and a recap of his hunt to me to share here on the ExNotes blog. Here you go, folks!

It all started in 2016 when I purchased my first Ruger No. 1 in 338 Win Mag from Joe.  I’ve always wanted a Ruger No. 1, but I already had a Winchester Model 70 in 338 Win Mag. I planned to go on a bear hunt in 2018, so what I did was sell my Winchester Model 70 to my best friend, who went on the bear hunt, too. I would be using my Ruger No. 1. So this is a story about me and my new rifle and our quest for a big Southeast Alaskan black bear. It was a guided hunt through Alaskan Coastal Outfitters.

Our base camp was on a boat and in the evening we would take a skiff and cruise around all the little islands and bays looking for the right bear. We saw lots of bears (a lot of sows with cubs). We also saw a lot of boars. On Day 4 of our hunt we saw a really nice bear. We got as close as we could without spooking him. My guide told me to get out of the boat and he held the boat still for me. Then, as I was pulling my leg over the side of the boat I got hooked on to the edge of the boat and I fell face down in 8 inches of water.

The bear ran off and my beautiful Ruger No.1 was laying in 8 inches of salt water, so we raced back to the boat, took the rifle apart, and cleaned it up so it was like new.

The next day we went out again and this time I was extra cautious not to fall in when we came across the bear you see in the picture. He was about 300 yards from the skiff when we spotted him. We got as close as we could without spooking him, which was about 140 yards, and my guide kept on asking me if I could make the shot. I always answered “yes, no problem.” I lay down and rested my rifle on my pack. Wouldn’t you know it, I had to lay down in a little creek so I got wet again. We lay there for what seemed to be an eternity. My guide made sure it was a boar and not a sow. Finally, he gave me the OK.

Just then, the bear turned so he had his back to me (so I couldn’t shoot). It gave me an opportunity to situate my follow-up shot. I decided the quickest way to get a follow-up shot (if I needed one) was to shoot with the next round in my hand.

The bear finally turned broadside and I dropped the hammer. I hit him just behind the shoulder and he dropped. My guide backed me up with a 375 H&H rifle, but he didn’t need to fire it. The bear went down, and when we reached him, we saw he was the monster he appeared to be from a distance. The bear measured 7 feet and weighed about 400 lbs.

Jason, that’s an awesome story and a magnificent photograph.  I was sorry to see that rifle go, but it obviously went to a good home and you sure put it to good use.  You know, it takes a real sportsman to do what you did…going after bear with a single-shot rifle.   Congratulations on a successful hunt, and thanks much for sharing your adventure with us here on the ExhaustNotes blog!

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The Browning B78

Sometime in the late 1970s, when I was an engineer on the F-16 program at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, I visited a company called National Water Lift somewhere in the Great Lakes area. What we bought from NWL had nothing to do with water (they made the F-16’s hydraulic accumulators). It’s a lead into this story, which is about my Browning B78 rifle. You see, every time I had to visit one of these distant places on my business travels, it was an opportunity to check out the gun shops in the area. Which I did, and the one that stuck in my mind had a Browning B78.

The Browning B78 Rifle

The B78 was a competitor to Ruger’s No. 1 single-shot rifle, and the design was basically a resurrection of the old Winchester High Wall. Ruger did surprisingly well with the No. 1 back in the 1970s (the idea of a single-shot rifle was intriguing to me and many others), and I guess Browning wanted in on the action (pardon the pun).

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Rugers outsold Brownings probably 10 to 1 (or more) in those days because they were less expensive and Ruger’s marketing was better. But the Browning was (and still is) a very elegant rifle. I saw one at that store (I want to say it was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but I can’t remember for sure), and it was nice. It was a 30 06 and it had an octagonal barrel, which was all very appealing. But the Browning was a good $100 more than the Ruger and in the 1970s, that kind of money was out of my reach.

Good Deals on Gunbroker

Fast forward 40 years, the Great Recession was upon us, and all kinds of exotic and collectible rifles were popping up on Gunbroker.com (a firearms auction site).  I saw what appeared to be a nice B78 on Gunbroker, with an octagonal barrel, in God’s caliber (that would be .30 06), and I pounced. I paid too much, but we never say it that way. I bought too soon. Yeah, that works. I just bought too soon.

A earlier photo from one of my first range trips with the Browning B78. .30 06, one shot, great walnut, an octagonal barrel…this rifle is elegant.
The B78 is sharp from either side. That’s a Weaver 2×7 scope, and it gets the job done.

After I bought the B78, I wanted to put a period-correct scope on it (you know, from the 1970s) and I found a nice Weaver 2×7 on another auction site.   Weavers are good scopes and the ones from the 1970s were blued steel and made in America.   It was just what the doctor ordered, and it looks right at home on my B78.

My B78 is used, and it’s got a few nicks and dings on it. But the metal work is perfect, and the walnut is (in my opinion) exhibition grade. Take a look, and you tell me.

Good wood. This is exhibition grade walnut…
…and it has fine figure on both sides.

Preferred B78 .30 06 Jacketed Loads

I’ve owned the B78 for about 10 years now, and it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve never seen another B78 on the rifle range, and I’ve certainly never seen one with an octagonal barrel. It’s just a cool firearm. But it is finicky. It likes heavier bullets and with the right load it’s accurate, but getting there took a lot of experimenting, a little bit of forearm re-bedding, and a lot of load development. I’ve got two loads that do very well in it…one is a heavy-duty jacketed load, and the other is a cast bullet light load. The heavy load is with a 180 grain Remington jacketed softpoint and a max load of 4064 (I’ve shot three-quarter-inch groups with this load at 100 yards). That load has big recoil, but it’s tolerable. I tried 180 grain Nosler bullets (that’s a premium bullet), but the rifle does way better with the less-expensive Remington bullets. That’s a good thing, because I found a good deal on 900 of those bullets and they have a home on my reloading bench now.

A Preferred B78 Cast Load

My cast bullet load is a short-range low power load, and it’s recoil is almost nonexistent compared to the jacketed load. It’s a 180 grain cast lead bullet (with a gas check) and 17.0 grains of Trail Boss power. After zeroing the Browning for the jacketed bullet load mentioned above at 100 yards, I had to crank the scope up a cool 85 clicks to bring the cast bullets back on paper at 50 yards (I was surprised there was that much adjustment in the scope). But wow, those cast bullets at 50 yards cloverleafed consistently. It was essentially putting them through the same ragged hole. At 100 yards, getting the cast bullet load back to point of aim involved another 25 clicks of elevation on the Weaver, and again, I was surprised there was that much in the scope. At 100 yards, the cast load groups opened up to about 2 ½ inches, and that’s still okay. What’s nice is I can shoot the cast bullet load all day long. The barrel doesn’t heat up and the recoil is trivial. As you might imagine with a load like this and the gas-checked bullets, there was virtually no leading.

When I go for deer later this year, it’s going to be with this rifle.  One shot.  I think that’s all I’ll need.   We’ll see.

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A day at the range…

I belong to a small circle of good buddies who, like me, are into shooting military surplus rifles and other cool old guns.  We get together every two months or so for an informal match at the West End Gun Club.   It’s a fun match, nothing terribly formal, and the winner has to buy lunch for everyone (and it’s usually me or Greg shelling out the cash for the fine Mexican lunches that follow our get-togethers).   Those events are a lot of fun and you can read about them (and the milsurp rifles) on our ExhaustNotes Tales of the Gun page.

Lots of times, though, it’s just me and good buddy Greg out there on the rifle range, and this past Friday morning was one of those days.  When that happens, we’ll usually send an email around to the other guys in our milsurp squad talking about what we shot, the loads we used, and how we did.  We did that last week, and I thought I’d share the emails with you.  First, my email to the boys…

Guys:

Every once in a while I get this feeling I need to sell a few guns, and that happened again earlier this week. I thought one of the ones I would sell was a pristine Model 43 Winchester Deluxe in .22 Hornet. This rifle is in as new condition with the original bluing. It was manufactured in 1949, 2 years before I was born. I took it out of the safe with the idea of taking a few photos for Gunbroker.com, and then I realized: What was I thinking? I don’t want to sell this rifle. Nope, a far better idea would be to load some .22 Hornet ammo and take it to the range.

The Model 43 Winchester, in .22 Hornet. This is the Deluxe version, with cut checkering and a deep blue finish. It’s hard to believe this rifle is 70 years old!
An elegant rifle, to be sure.

I bought the Model 43 about 6 years ago and until this morning I had never fired it. It found it on the consignment rack at Turner’s in Covina. After seeing the rifle there, I stopped by every other week for a couple of months, and then on one visit I saw they had dropped the price.   I thought it was fairly priced at the original number they had on the rifle, but I was initially hesitant.  It’s a beautiful rifle, but it didn’t really fit in with the other stuff in my modest collection and I didn’t want to shell out big bucks for another toy that would just sit in the safe.   When they dropped the price, though, I pounced. The gun department manager there was mildly annoyed because he wanted to buy it and it a weird sort of way that made me feel good. Hey, you snooze, you lose.

I knew I had waited too long to finally get around to shooting the old Winchester, but the Hornet’s day in the sun was today.  The Model 43 and I found our way to the WEGC range this morning, and as you might imagine, it was a good day.  Hell, any day on the rifle range is a good day.

22 Hornet ammo. It’s the original 22 centerfire cartridge, and in its day, it was the ultimate varmint round. Plus, it’s just cool.

About that .22 Hornet ammo: Good buddy Michael B sent some Hornet brass to me a few months ago. I loaded the brass Michael sent to me yesterday with a mild 4227 load (the powder came from Paul) and a box of 45 grain Sierra bullets that have been on my reloading bench since God was a roadguard.  (Thanks, Michael…I put your brass to good use!) Good buddy Greg was there with me. He can verify that everything you read here is true, unless he takes the 5th.

[Note for our blog readers…you’ve heard me talk about good buddy Paul, who was my next door neighbor when we were kids.   So was Michael.  He’s Paul’s little brother.]

Here are a few more shots of the Model 43…it is a beautiful little rifle. Clean, rare, collectible, and in fantastic condition. I mean, do any of you think you are going to look this good when you are 70 years old?

The Model 43’s front sight.  It and the barrel are machined from one piece of steel.

In examining the front sight and its ramp, I was surprised to see that it was a not a separate piece attached to the barrel. Nope, these barrels started as a giant hunk of steel, and were hogged down to shape. The front sight ramp is an integral part of the barrel. That had to be expensive to manufacture. Note the stippling on the ramp. Things were different in 1949.

I’m pretty sure that the bluing is original…the lettering and roll marks are all very crisp.

Note the checkering, a feature of the Deluxe version of the Model 43.
The rear sight and the fore end. This thing looks like could be brand new.

The stock may have been refinished, or at least had a coat or two or TruOil added to spruce it up somewhere along its life’s journey. The checkering is sharp, though. It might be the original stock finish. Overall, the rifle is in excellent condition.

And finally, a photo of Michael’s brass reloaded by yours truly in the original Model 43 magazine…I can’t imagine what a replacement magazine (if you could even find one) would cost for this rifle…

Good-looking ammo in a good-looking (and original) magazine.  It’s a magazine, not a clip.

The Model 43 shot well this morning. It had already been zeroed in by the previous owner and it shot roughly 1-inch above point of aim at 50 yards, which is about perfect for a rifle like this.  Recoil was very moderate, as you might imagine with a 45-grain bullet at 2400 fps. The groups were about 1.5 to 2.0 inches, which is, as they say, close enough for government work. Not too shabby for a 70-year-old Winchester.

Joe 

So that was my email, and it was quickly followed by a response from Greg.  Here’s what old Greg had to say…

Every word Joe says is true, I swear. That gun looked like someone just took it out of the box. And that machined ramp at the front sight was very unexpected. Anyone familiar with manufacturing techniques will immediately recognize the difficulty of machining that final few inches of the barrel. Eh, times gone by. You won’t find that on any guns today I think.

Greg firing his 7mm Mag Ruger No. 1 on an earlier outing.

My story-of-the-day is the 7mm Remington Magnum Ruger No. 1 I took out. I had the normal power loads that did about as they usually do at 100 yards, roughly an inch and a half. But the surprise was a very low power load I jinned up with Trail boss. I had a 140 grain Sierra Game King sitting on top of 20 grains of Trail Boss (I know, it sounds weird). The Hodgdon site has a data sheet (attached) that has loads all the way up to a .416 Remington Magnum. But for the 140 grain bullet in a 7mm RemMag they list a load starting at 17.2 grains and going up to a max load of 24.5 grains, so my 20 grains was somewhere near the middle.

Anyway, I had just put away the Mini-14 and thought I’d start the Ruger No. 1 off with the low recoil Trail Boss loads. I was stunned to see the five shot group pictured below (at .685”). It was easily the best group of the day for the rifle, though it ended up on paper about 12” below, and 1” to the left, of the “normal” loads for that beast. Recoil was extremely mild as you would expect.

A reduced-velocity 7mm Mag load loaded with Trail Boss propellant. This is a 5-shot group at 100 yards. It’s a phenomenally accurate load in Greg’s Ruger No. 1.

My problem with this Trail Boss load is that the scope, as mounted, doesn’t have the adjustment range to accommodate the 12” drop at 100 yards, so I may end up shimming its mount to enable the use of Trail Boss. Time will tell…

Greg

And there you have it.  More good times, good guns, good shooting, and good loads.  Stay tuned…because we’ll keep the Tales of the Gun stories coming!